The Sexiest Sketch In My Life Literally Wanna Bite It

tying you to me 

brittany s pierce is autistic

around a year ago, i made this post about santana lopez and why i (as a neurodivergent person) view her as having adhd (among other things which i've mentioned elsewhere and plan on writing more meta about), and i think it's finally time to talk about brittany s pierce, my autistic queen, and why i view her as autistic.

firstly, i want to acknowledge that i'm not the first person to headcanon brittany as autistic. i'm nowhere near the first person to write a post about it. in fact, sue sylvester calls brittana "autistically feisty", which i think is the closest we've got to an actually autistic canon confirmation. i'd suggest reading these posts by smolbrittana and sopheadraws among others. brittany has also been written as autistic in fanfiction (the road to unicorn and there's something about santana are two of my personal favourites in terms of writing brittany as autistic in an authentic way that doesn't feel like autistic media portrayed by neurotypical people).

as i've said in other posts, i'm autistic myself and also have a background in adolescent psychology. i do not endorse diagnosing real people with anything; brittany s pierce is a fictional character and displays a lot of traits that resonate with me as an autistic person hence why i am making this post. i'm also aware that some of these things were written to be throwaway lines or comic effect but viewing them as that and viewing them through an autistic lens does not have to be mutually exclusive. also, i use identity-first language, which is generally preferred among actually autistic folks.

(trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault, as well as mention of school shooting)

sidenote but i also believe brittany to have a specific learning disability in language in addition to being autistic which will most likely require its own post.

anyway, without further ado, let's go.

poor executive functioning - brittany struggles with basic self-care tasks such as brushing her teeth and remembering to eat breakfast. it's also worth pointing out that a lot of autistic folks struggle with brushing their teeth for sensory reasons, which could be a possibility with brittany and why her teeth were in the state they were in during 2x02. i myself did not brush my teeth regularly until i got braces (when i was 15).

difficulty coping with change - this one is pretty broad and can encompass small things, such as believing in santa claus or believing that storks bring babies in her junior year of high school, and big things, such as her feelings of hopelessness and depression when she is held back a year and santana goes off to louisville.

rigid routines - writes everything with multicoloured crayon (a different crayon for every letter). she was also very particular when the planning for her wedding was taking place; was stressed out by the idea of santana seeing her in her wedding dress and felt the need to put a lot of rituals in place to alleviate her feelings of anxiety in that situation.

difficulty comprehending figurative language - brittany tends to take things people say at face value. there are a lot of examples of her misunderstanding when other people use non-literal figures of speech (e.g. "brittany, take it away"/"take what away?"). in 3x22 mercedes wishes everyone in glee club could all stay in the room together so they wouldn't have to leave and brittany suggests using the bin for a toilet and eating joe.

unusual eating habits - brittany has pica (consuming non-food items); canonically she has eaten the snowflakes at sadie hawkins, kleenex, sand in her master cleanse and the soil sue put in her and santana's lockers.

very particular narrow interests - brittany is an expert on cat diseases and (although the storyline bothers me for personal reasons) she is also exceptional at maths.

flat affect - often speaks in a monotone voice

tendency to come across as blunt or rude - this comes through in a lot of her interactions with tina and rachel, as well as in her speech to santana's abuela in 6x06 and her communication with guests on fondue for two.

inability to lie - often tells on herself, particularly in instances concerning sue and being pressured to spy on the glee club for her.

heightened sensory experiences - the one time when she notices blaine isn't in glee club because she can smell his hair gel. brittany is a great dancer (because the actress who played her was a professional dancer who worked with beyoncé) and is sensory-seeking in a proprioceptive way. she also enjoys the use of koosh pens and fidgets with them at times.

"unconventional" experiences with gender identity and/or gender expression and sexuality - research has shown that autistic individuals are more likely to identify as part of the lgbtq+ community, which brittany does as a bi woman. she has also experimented with androgynous gender expression (e.g. her senior prom outfit) and she ran for prom king.

masking - tends to have different personas depending on who she's with. she is more comfortable around santana and mercedes, but alters how she communicates with people depending on how they have communicated with her (or santana, who she's very protective of) in the past.

hyperfixations - when she's running kurt's (and later her own) campaign for president, a lot of her dialogue includes mentions of unicorns.

learning difficulties and poor experience in mainstream schooling - statistically, autistic children have poor school outcomes (and it's entirely the fault of the school system, not the children themselves). 60-70% of autistic people also have a learning disability. 56% of autistic youth in australia report being treated unfairly at school. when talking to rachel in 2x13, brittany explicitly says that teachers have told her that by not attending class, her grades might improve. as a result of the lack of support (which may have led to discomfort in asking for assistance), brittany was unable to graduate from high school with her peers.

naivety and/or childlike interests - brittany can be gullible at times (e.g. sue's baby cannons tactic). as smolbrittana pointed out in their post, she writes with crayon and plays with barbies at times.

difficulty understanding other people's points of view - the dissonance between her own understanding and expectations of sex versus artie's expectations for what his first sexual experience should be like.

unconventional ways of expressing emotions - brittany often uses lord tubbington to describe how she feels about a particular situation (often when she's upset about a situation involving santana); for example, she tells lord tubbington "you joined a gang" right after santana tells her over skype that her commitments to the louisville cardinals cheerleading team impede on her ability to talk to brittany over skype.

burnout - i've touched on this in other posts, but brittany's presentation in 5x12 and 5x13 read as her being exhausted and overwhelmed with feeling forced to pursue mathematics and not have any other creative outlet.

faceblindness - brittany mistakes a brunette girl who is a member of the prom committee for rachel, and at times confuses unique and mercedes.

love of animals - brittany has a close connection with her cats, lord tubbington and lady tubbington. research shows that autistic individuals prefer to interact with animals over humans and 80% of autistic children participated in pet therapy.

freeze response to trauma - brittany experienced a freeze response during the lockdown in 4x18, which is common in autistic people. this can be prolonged and can occur for minutes, even hours.

sexual trauma - this is unfortunately a case of glee making a joke out of serious topics and it's not an isolated incident. in 1x17, brittany (who at the time is a sophomore and therefore 15 or 16 years old), in an effort to state her case for why she should be ranked higher on quinn's arbitrary list of who are the most sexually promiscuous glee club members, mentioned that she has "made out" with mr kidney the janitor, who is presumably an adult as he is employed by the school* (also i want to point out that any relationship involving a school employee and a school student that is of a sexual nature is predatory regardless of age; for example, although puck is 18 when he has a sexual relationship with shelby, she is still in a position of power over him and by engaging in a romantic and later sexual relationship with him is a sexual predator). in 3x05, brittany later describes her first sexual experience as an "alien invasion" (and in fact the original dialogue for that scene revealed that she was 14 and the "alien" in question was a 19-year-old). research suggests that 30% of women have experienced sexual assault, and 2-3x as many autistic women are affected. an estimated 9 out of 10 autistic women have been victims of sexual assault. outside of her relationship with santana (who also canonically has experienced SA), brittany engages in hypersexual behaviour; she mentions having a "perfect record" and she mentions her sexual history as evidence of her popularity when persuading kurt to let her be his campaign manager. this can be interpreted as her way of coping with her traumatic experiences, and it becomes a problem when she uses sex as a way to help artie move on from tina, not realising that artie views sex differently than how she does.

(*also i want to point out that brittany's experiences with mr kidney could have also occurred much earlier than when she brought them up, which is even more unfortunate)

(me on a first date) and what do you think of the inherent intimacy of surgery? have you considered the love someone must have to put their hands under your skin and hold the most grotesque parts of you and put them back together nicely? is anyone really closer to you than that? we all get uh a little enamored on the surgery table don't we haha. wait come back

i know it's the angle but the scream 5 pictures make tara seem so more of a baby. and smaller. and babiest. which is funny bc the first one was shot in sept-october 2020 so jenna was 17 going on 18 (just like tara) so she's literally the same age as her character. but she seems more schmol.

just a baby 🫶

the four horsemen of lesbian media lol

how is tara just the littlest guy. and gets more little with every picture 😭

heavenly creatures (1994) / but i’m a cheerleader (1999) / the l word (2004-2009) / yellowjackets (2021–)

SOBBING.

Potential prompt: Sam gets hurt protecting Tara. Like badly hurt. What would happen?

“Go with grace”

i’m sorry.

————————————

“Sammy. Sammy! ¿Puedes dibujarme una flor?”

(Sammy. Sammy! Can you draw me a flower?)

Sam looked down at the little voice next to her, smiling down at her baby sister. She was working on her art project at the kitchen table, on one of the high stools. At just five years old, she was not quite big enough to reach Sam, so she used her little hands to tug on Sam’s pants for attention.

Reaching down, Sam picked up Tara and situated her on her lap. Her sister curled into her embrace, sighing peacefully. Sam reached for her pack of colored pencils, pulling it closer to Tara.

“Tú eliges los colores. Quieres un lirio o un tulipán?” she murmured, kissing Tara's hair.

(You choose the colors. Do you want a lily or tulip?)

Her sister played with the pencils, running her little hands over each one. Sam knew that Tara liked the sensation and texture of the smooth pencils, and let her sister take her time making a decision. She just held her sister, pressing her cheek into her hair. Tara always smelled like peaches. Sam was addicted.

Finally, Tara picked out a few. Blue, yellow, and purple. She handed the pencils to Sam, leaning back into her big sister, ready to watch. “Quiero un lirio, por favor,”.

(I want a lily, please)

Kissing the back of her head, Sam started to draw.

Tara watched her big sister draw, her eyes big and full of wonder. She rested her head against Sam’s chest, and with one hand on Sam’s drawing hand, gently tracing with her big sister. Art isn’t something that came naturally to Tara. She just loved watching her big sister draw.

It took a while, and once Sam started to feel Tara sag against her, sighing sleepily, she hurried it up.

“Está hecho nena. Mira,” she whispered, shaking Tara a little bit.

(It’s done, baby girl. Look).

Yawning, Tara leaned forward. Sam could practically feel the excitement vibrating from her baby sister.

“Qué bonito. ¿Es para mí?” her sister questioned, marveling at the picture.

(It’s pretty! Is it for me?).

Sam laughed, squeezing Tara affectionately. “Sí, mi hermoso cielo. Todo es para ti,” she whispered.

(Yes my beautiful sky. Everything is for you).

Tara laughed in glee, her little fingers playing with the paper. A purple tulip with blue and yellow highlights, with Sam’s work-in-progress official signature in the bottom right corner.

The two stayed there for a while, enjoying each other's comfort, staring at that picture together.

——

As Tara held her big sister’s body against her chest, she saw the tattoo. After having her sister back in her life for a whole year, Tara had never seen that tattoo. Even with the blood staining her big sister’s chest, Tara could still see it peeking out above Sam’s collarbone.

It was the very same tulip that Sam had drawn Tara years ago. The purple flower with yellow and blue highlights. With that same wobbly signature at the bottom right corner. It was a spitting image of that same flower, but on her big sister’s skin.

Sam gasped in her arms, her eyes drifting away. Tara sobbed, holding Sam tight with one arm, the other pressing on the wound that marred her sister’s chest. Her sister looked shocked, blood dripping out of the corner of her mouth. She could feel her big sister’s quick gasps and wheezing against her chest.

Desperately, Tara started talking, trying to get Sam to look at her. “¿El tulipán? Sam, ¿es ese el tulipán? Sam, mírame. Mírame. Háblame del tulipán, Sammy.”

(Is that the tulip? Sam, is that the tulip? Sam, look at me. Look at me. Tell me about the tulip, Sammy).

Sam looked up at her baby sister, her warm eyes unfocused. Despite the blood loss, Sam still looked at Tara with so much wonder and so much love. Her big sister looked so comfortable, so relaxed. It made Tara cry harder, squeezing Sam.

“El tulipán. Te quiero, Tara. I love you so much.” her big sister whispered, the corners of her bloody mouth quivering a bit.

(The tulip. I love you, Tara. I love you so much).

Tara shook her head rapidly. “No. No, Sammy. Look at me. Stay, Sammy, stay!” she pleaded, shaking Sam a bit.

The color blue and the smell of tulips will haunt Tara.

She will always hear echoes of an ambulance too late to save Sam, for the rest of her life. The feeling of her sister’s blood sticking to her skin will stain her hands permanently red.

And that flower will haunt her. But she will still get it tattooed above her collarbone. And Tara will seek danger for the rest of her short life, hoping that a bullet will bring her back to her sister.

She hopes that she goes with the same grace her big sister once did, a death softened by the blow of love. Tranquility knowing that the person they love will stay with them while they pass.

Grace.

Enid: Look at me straight in the eyes and tell me the truth, Wednesday! Wednesday: You can’t expect me to look into your eyes and be straight.